Friday, 27 March 2015

look beneath the floorboards...

Another one from this season’s choir setlist (as part of the rock medley). For some reason, and in spite of the fact that I’ve essentially been listening to this song since I first heard it as a thirteen year old, I have some trouble remembering the first line that I need to sing. Mind you, that’s nothing compared to Roy, who every single time we sing this manages to turn “I wanna taste you, but your lips are venomous poison” into “I want to taste your lips”. Every single time. Bless him. I remember this seeming a bit cheesy when it first came out, but as I listen to it now, it’s actually held up really well. I suppose compared to something like “School’s Out”, it’s always going to sound like slick, produced rock…. But that’s exactly what it is. Great song.

This week’s letter in the Friday quiz was “L”. The questions are the same every week, but you need to answer them all with answers starting with the letter of the week. Question: name a band from the 1990s who had a top 40 single. Walk in the park. The kids in the team struggle somewhat with this question. Mind you, my capital city was staggeringly obvious too. I was also slightly surprised to be the only person in the room to come up with “Las Vegas” as a place in America (most people in the room went with LA)

He might be a plum, but it’s utter nonsense to suggest that Kanye West isn’t talented. That petition now has more signatories than there are tickets for the festival. I really think they need to read this:

PC Tom Logan, who mans the gates at Downing Street, said: “We get about 10 of these a day, with demands ranging from the introduction of urban wolves to bringing back Sapphire & Steel. We used to pretend we were taking them inside to give to the prime minister, but lately we just get the petitioners to feed them into the shredder themselves while we take a photo of them for their local paper. They don’t seem to mind. I think they just like signing things.”

I love how spiky and awkward this song is, and I’m resolutely not buying the band’s claim that this is a sexy record about sexy things. Really? If it is, they’ve hidden it really, really well. When they talk sexy it tends to be toe-curlingly awkward, as it is on their last record.

“I’m gonna bed into you like a cat beds into a beanbagTurn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet”

Another band my wife loves. I don’t think just because they’re French. We were walking around Courchevel a couple of weeks ago, and we heard nothing but absolute garbage playing on the PA systems in shops and pumping out of bars. It was something of a relief to walk into one particular snowboard shop where they were playing Daft Punk. It wasn’t a fluke either: we went back a few days later and they were playing a different Daft Punk record. Maybe that gets old if you work there, but as a passing customer, that worked pretty well for me. And actually, when I worked at HMV, you learn to tune that sort of stuff out anyway (although it did take me several years to be able to listen to “OK Computer” without getting flashbacks. I think I’ve probably got all the lyrics to the first Spice Girls record in my head somewhere, although I’m hoping that they don’t pop out anytime soon)

I love this record. There’s an air of sadness and regret in the lyrics that makes it so intriguing. I have no idea what it’s about, and I’m not sure that I really want to know. Also, can you genuflect in anything other than a penitent way? Perhaps you can, but should you?

How many artists would dare to write a song empathising with a notorious serial-killer? He really, really goes for it too. Apparently Sufjan has a new album coming out soon, and it’s supposed to be a cracker too. I absolutely adored “Illinoise”, but “The Age of Adz” left me utterly cold and I couldn’t even bear to listen to it all of the way though. The new one is a deeply personal record about the death of his mother, and by the sounds of it is much more up my street. I do love to enjoy other people’s suffering, after all. Who doesn’t?